Comfort Zone
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: The latest connection to Red John has a close link to Lisbon's past. When the nightmares return, will Jane choose Red John, or will he choose Lisbon? Jisbon.


**Comfort Zone**

_Where do we go_

_When there's a need to be loved_

_Like you need to be loved_

_Oh, I'll let you know_

_Just what to do and where to go_

_Hey, welcome to the comfort zone_

_-Vanessa Williams – The Comfort Zone_

It wasn't that late when Lisbon headed back in her hotel room, but she hadn't been out for long in the first place. She'd glanced at her watch in the elevator and saw that it was only ten minutes past nine o'clock but she still felt exhausted. The case they were working on at the moment was a touch too personal for her liking, involving a man who linked a case not only to Red John, but also to her mother's car accident death twenty years ago – the man being her uncle, her father's brother. Donny Lisbon had been there for her in incredible ways after her mother had died, helping her take care of her brothers, and he had paid the rent to keep a roof over their heads when their father drunk himself into a neighbouring grave...and now she found out that her beloved uncle was the not only the cause of her mother's accident, but also that he claimed it was on the orders of Red John.

He'd called them initially regarding information about Red John, insisting that Lisbon meet him in a hotel restaurant near to her hometown, and they had gone, booking each into their own rooms and preparing for the night. She'd arrived two hours before the dinner reservation to change and get presentable, making sure that her and Donny could easily blend into the class of the hotel. Cho arrived at her room first, delivering the package she knew contained a listening device which they would each monitor from different positions in the hotel – Rigsby and Van Pelt seated at a nearby table, pretending to enjoy an intimate meal together, Cho by the exit, and Jane by the patio doors that lead to the veranda dining area. It seemed strange, at first, to need all this for a conversation with her uncle, but considering the information that he was promising them, they needed to make sure that every word was documented.

Dinner hadn't gone well, to say the least. She'd caught Jane's eyes as she entered the restaurant, exactly on time. She immediately looked away, as if she only glanced at him in passing and approached the table where her uncle was waiting for her. She eagerly returned the hug that he offered her, despite the circumstances for meeting it had been a long time since she'd seen him, and then they were seated. As he held out the chair for her, she felt Jane's eyes sweeping over her and for once, the feeling of being watched was fairly comforting. She couldn't help but feel the irony of it now, as she waited for the elevator to arrive at her floor. She'd spent two hours getting ready; showering, doing her hair and then forcing herself out of the room, and it was all over before they'd even finished the entrees.

When the elevator doors pinged open on her floor, she found herself fighting tears. She stepped into the hall, hearing footsteps from the other end, and she quickly moved into her own room, struggling with her key for a moment as her hands were shaking. She heard Cho calling her name, even his voice sounding concerned as he heard exactly what Donny had told her, as had everyone else. She ignored his call, though, ducking into her room and closing the door behind her. She was still for a moment, watching the shadow beneath the door until it disappeared, signalling that Cho had gone, and then she moved quickly around the room.

She took off the shrug wrap that had lain around her shoulders, throwing it across the room so that it landed on the dresser, knocking her perfume bottle onto the plush carpeting. The stress of having her uncle speak such words to her had finally reached breaking point and a lump began burning in her throat as tears leaked from her eyes, ruining the perfect make up she'd painted on her face. Of course, the majority of it was waterproof, but tears were always a sure way of ruining one's appearance. She reached up to her dark hair, taking out the clips that held it firmly in place. It was strange how she spent so long trying to keep all of her hair controllably held in place, and now she couldn't get it hanging around her shoulders fast enough. Then the dress had to go. The black fabric felt like it was eating her skin, surrounding her like her uncle Donny's words had done. She stood there for a moment, the fabric pooled on the floor around her feet, finally feeling like she was free from the words, but his voice was still echoing in the back of her mind. She changed into a pair of black sweatpants and a grey t-shirt, ready for the sleep that she probably wouldn't get that night, and threw herself on the end of the bed, sitting with her head in her hands.

Donny had revealed everything. In the space of twenty minutes, he revealed that he'd had dealings with a man who went by the alias of Red John. He told her details about the murders in ways that had her hearing Jane's increasing breaths over the listening device in her ear. After he was done listing his knowledge of Red John, he had started to mention Lisbon's past, about how he remembered her as a child, how he had taught her to climb trees to get away from her younger brothers. He said that after her mother died, he knew that their father beat them, and that she had taken most of the hits in protecting the brothers she once tried to run away from, and that because of this...

_"Because he beat you...so badly...hurt you in ways a father should never hurt his daughter..._" he had said, so calmly and indifferently that it almost didn't seem like her uncle talking. _"...I always regret killing your mother."_

Lisbon wasn't sure how much time had passed before she stopped crying, but eventually her sobs calmed into weak whimpers as the trembling began to cease. She heard a soft knocking on her door but she didn't move to answer it. She didn't want to talk to whoever was on the other side, knowing that questions concerning her family would follow and that she'd be lectured about concealing the truth from her friends.

Whoever was at the door left within a few minutes of waiting and she bowed her head once more. However, only a few minutes later there was another sound at the door. She whipped her head up, wondering who on Earth was trying to get into her room and even more so wondering how they had a key card to do so. Her hands reached for a weapon to defend herself but she was wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt, not her usual attire where she could conceal her back up. So, in her devastation she was left to wait as whoever was entering her room made themselves known.

Her tear stained cheeks would have been obvious to the man who stood in the doorway, but she didn't move to wipe them away. Part of her wasn't surprised to see who it was that stood there, half concealed by the illumination from the hall behind him in the darkness of her room, but she was rather surprised that he'd clearly gone to some means to get a key to her room, especially after what had been revealed by Donny – mainly the name and true identity of Red John. Jane was silent, stepping into the hotel room and gently closing the door behind him. He crossed the room, sitting down beside her on the mattress, keeping a small gap between them on top of the blankets.

"Your uncle used to kill people for Red John," he said simply. It wasn't a question, so she offered him no answer.

"What do you want, Jane?" she asked him, trying to keep the same tone of voice she might have in normal circumstances.

He stared down at his hands, and she assumed he was too disgusted with her bloodline to look at her. "Your uncle killed people under Red John's orders, he took your mother's life. Then, he stood by and allowed your father to beat you senseless, and he did _nothing _while he knew that you were being severely abused by your father...physically, mentally and...and sexually."

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, he did."

"Why didn't you tell anybody what he did to you?" he asked her.

She shrugged. "I didn't want my brothers to be taken away. I needed us to stay together. I promised them we'd stay together."

"Your father _raped _you, Lisbon," he said, struggling with the words.

"Every time he had a drink," she confirmed. "He was a monster, he deserved to drink himself in a grave, and he had no right having children in the first place. There, you know now. Happy?"

"_Happy_?" he repeated. "How on earth could I be happy? Lisbon, you were a _child_..."

"If it hadn't been me, he would have hurt them," she justified. "They were little boys, Jane, they didn't deserve anything like that."

"You were a little girl, and neither did you," he corrected her.

"I wasn't a little girl," she shook her head. "Not since she died."

"But you _should _have been," he defended. "And what he did to you..."

"Bad things can happen to little girls, Jane," she whispered, bowing her head. "You know that. It's the way of the world sometimes."

"But it's not _fair_," he whined.

And then there was silence again – silence that she would have begged for fifteen seconds ago, but now she just wanted it to disappear before it deafened her. "How did you get in here?" she asked him. "I have the only key."

"I went to the lobby and told the receptionist that you were my wife," he mumbled distracted. Lisbon turned to him, noticing that despite his words he seemed a thousand miles away, but he continued to look down at his hands. "Said that we had an argument and you locked me out. I couldn't...I had to come see if you were ok."

"Does it matter?"

"It does to me," he nodded.

"I'm fine," she answered with a firm nod. It was clear, however, that she wasn't good because her hands were trembling and her eyes were still streaming with tears. "Considering my entire life has been laid to rest on a restaurant table by a man I used to love and trust more than my own father."

There was a momentary silence where Jane wasn't sure what to say to her. "None of what he said could have been your fault, Teresa," he whispered, finally raising his eyes from his hands to meet hers.

She took a moment to compose herself, but failed. She knew what horrible, endless nightmares the death of her mother and her father's abuse had caused her, but she dread to think what they might become now. Her past was the one thing she could admit she was afraid of. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Jane's knuckles were covered in blood. She frowned, taking it on her own and inspecting it. "Have you hit somebody?" she asked, recognising the marks as her fingers dusted his skin gracefully.

"Donny," he said simply.

Lisbon frowned. "You can't hit him just because he had a connection to Red John."

"That wasn't why I hit him," he told her knowingly. "Cho arrested him, they're taking him back to Sacramento as soon as an extra protection unit from the local police turns up to escort them, just in case Red John intervenes. The others are packing up ready to leave now...I said we'd follow them back tomorrow, and I uh...I didn't like that he'd stood by and allowed that to happen, that he took your mother from you...and I really didn't like that he'd upset you so..." he trailed off, almost like a young boy who was proud of what he had done but was too ashamed to face his parents with t.

It made her smile a little to hear that tone in his voice, and she couldn't hold it back even though tears still sat on her cheeks. As the corners of her lips raised ever so slightly, Jane put his arm around her. For a moment, she allowed herself to fall against his shoulder, taking comfort from him but the chaste kiss his planted on her temple made her realise what was happening and she sat up almost immediately after his lips had left her skin. She was surprised to find that his hand remained on her back, rubbing circles along the bottom of her spine as she started to wipe underneath her eyes.

"I'm such a mess," she sighed, dropping her hands in surrender when she was too exhausted, both physically and mentally, to try anymore.

"You're beautiful," Jane mumbled, without even thinking about his words.

When he realised that the words he'd been speaking in his head had been heard by Lisbon, his breath hitched in his throat. Sure, he'd been thinking it, but he didn't think he was ever going to tell her that. She was beautiful, even though she had tears on her cheeks, make up running and puffy, red eyes from crying. She was beautiful, even though her eyes had lost their playful glitter which flared whenever she was in her element. She was beautiful even though she'd had her spirit broken. Lisbon shook her head, unable to believe his words, but she was still replaying them in her head over and over. You're beautiful. It was like a song on repeat, and as she listening to his words, his hand still stayed on her back, now trailing up and down her spine through the fabric of her shirt.

"How can you stand to be here with me?" she asked. "The others are going to go back, possibly catch Red John...and you're staying behind. Why?"

"Because anything I could possibly do to him isn't going to save my wife or my little girl," he admitted, and she knew that this was going to be the biggest thing he could ever say. "And when you were a little girl someone should have saved you, and they didn't. He...your uncle should have saved you, and it makes me _sick _that he stood by and allowed that to happen to you...and I consider you my best friend, I really do, and the thought of somebody hurting you like that...of hurting you _at all_..." he broke off, his voice going high as if it were him on the verge of tears, and his eyes backed this up. "How could...how could they allow that to happen to you...how could somebody hurt you like that? You couldn't _ever _do something to deserve that, nobody could, especially not a child...and you deserved to be happy, and to have no worries, and to have a family that loved you..and they abused that trust and that love...Lisbon, I'd...The idea of somebody hurting _you _in that way makes my heart pound and my stomach turn and I haven't been as angry towards anyone as I am towards your uncle and your father right now in a long time."

At this, she let the tears overwhelmed her, unable to hold in the sobs that racked her body. Jane pulled her closer to him and held her reassuringly. This time, she didn't pull away and he was rather glad that she was allowing him to comfort her. Although she was deeply ashamed of her family secrets, she was glad that she had someone who she could talk to about them to stop them eating away at her insides. Jane may be unpredictable at times, never more so than now, when he was at her side rather than confronting Red John, but he was trustworthy and he would never speak of this to anyone else; he would allow the team to silently pity with what facts they already knew, but the words spoken now were ones that would remain between the two of them.

After a few minutes, Lisbon had cried herself hoarse and all that was left was the salty reside of her tears. She didn't pull back from him even when she was finished with her outburst, deciding instead to keep her head rested on his shoulder. With all the emotion she'd held back before, refusing to allow her uncle Donny to see how much his words hurt her, she was exhausted. Jane also stayed where he was, realising that the last time he'd been this close to Lisbon they'd been dancing at the school reunion, when her chin had been tucked against his shoulder. Emotionally, however, he didn't think he'd ever been this close to her. He hadn't realised how badly he wanted to hold her like he was at the moment until he had walked into her room and seen the tear tracks on her face. He wanted to be able to help her and be able to make things better for her – or at least try to. At the same time, Lisbon was realising how she hadn't felt so safe in a long time as she did in his arms, though she wouldn't admit it. If they had known what the other was thinking, and how similar their thoughts were, they would have been shocked by perhaps not entirely surprised.

"The others are leaving?" she asked, trying to break the silence that was becoming awkward.

"Soon," he confirmed, even though she could hear the distraction in his voice. "The arrest was pretty public, considering I did punch him in front of everyone, so they're calming things down and then getting packed up."

"You should go with them," she suggested, even though her mind was screaming that she didn't want him to leave. "He'll lead them to Red John."

"I'm not going anywhere," he insisted. "I won't leave you alone after this. You can insist you're fine all you want but I can see right through it, and I know you want me to stay."

Lisbon didn't know what to say to that. He was right – she wasn't fine and she did want him to stay, but she couldn't find the words to say this without sounding more desperate than she cared to. Even though she said nothing, he didn't leave. He stayed right where he was and continued to hold her just as tightly until words did return to her. "Thank you," she finally managed to sigh.

"I don't know what you're thanking me for," he half-grumbled.

"For not hating me for being related to him," she told him. "My own uncle was working that closely with Red John..."

"You can't pick your family, Lisbon," he reminded her. "Is...is everything he said about your childhood true?" he asked, almost hesitantly.

She nodded against him. "Yeah."

He pulled her to him a little more. "I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that," he whispered.

She gave half a shrug. "It's in the past now," she said quietly.

"It shouldn't have happened in the first place," he insisted again. "I know I pressed the fact that he had information on Red John, but I never wanted to hand you over to someone who had hurt you," he said, wondering why it was causing him so much discomfort to see her like this – was it because he wanted to protect her against the dark shadows of the past that threatened to consume her, or because he wasn't used to seeing this strong woman being so rattled by someone's words that she had retreated to a hotel room where she'd proceeded to sob her heart out on his shoulder?

"Why?" she asked, a question that he didn't really want to answer but he knew that he had to. This conversation had gone too far for them to take a step back now and pretend it had never happened, or to continue lying to himself.

"Because I care about you, Teresa," he whispered. His voice was quiet but so was the room and his words reached her ears with ease. "I don't want to see you get hurt, especially by a bastard like him." Lisbon was silent for a moment, and he was worried that he'd crossed the line too far by telling her that, but the silence was broken by a yawn a moment later. "You're tired," he realised.

"It's been a long day," she nodded, "and an even longer night." Her mind was drained a well as her body, and she was beginning to feel drawn to sleep. The warmth from Jane's body wasn't helping her desire to remain awake.

He nodded his head back to the bed and she followed his gaze. "Here, lay down," he told her, and she stood up, moving to the top end of the bed and settling down on the mattress. Jane mirrored her, following her to the top end and then when she lay comfortably, he settled beside her, half-sitting and half-laying on top of the blankets beside her. "Better?"

She closed her eyes and nodded, realising that she was resting her head in the gap between his neck and shoulder. One of is arms was wrapped around her, resting precariously on her hip beneath the blankets. He didn't dare himself to do anything else as he lay still beside her, but was surprised when her hand appeared above the blankets and took hold of his. "Jane?"

"Yeah!" he replied, trying to hide his surprise at her action.

"I care about you, too," she told him, her eyes still closed.

He felt his heart racing when she spoke, and had they been any closed she probably would have felt the muscle hammering away inside his chest. Clutching her hand, he gave it a reassuring squeeze and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. He lingered for a few moments and she could feel his warm breath on her skin. At that moment, she realised that she was truly safe with this man beside her; this man who annoyed and irritated her on a daily basis, this man who put her career in jeopardy, this man who knew how exhausted and vulnerable she was and refused to take advantage of her in a way that most men would have at this moment. Three she was, lying in his arms, content to welcome his touch and gentle kisses, and they both knew that it was for comfort and reassurance so that he wouldn't bring himself to exploit her and take advantage of her. Not Lisbon. Never Lisbon.

She kept her eyes closed, and after a few moments she was sure that she had convinced him she was sleep. She had been expecting him to leave once he thought she was sleeping, but at least half an hour passed and he stayed exactly in place, not even moving his hands. She realised that he was obviously not planning to leave her that night and she was glad for it. She felt the arm that was above the blankets being lifted and then felt soft lips touch to her knuckles. She had to fight to hold back a little smile, so much so that she turned her head into the pillow a little. Jane had seen her lips move at the last minute before being hidden, however, and didn't even try to contain his smile. After a few more moments, knowing that she was safe in his arms, she fell into a deep sleep.

END.


End file.
